Small group experiments

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Bavelas, Alex (1950). Communication patterns in task oriented groups. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 22, 725-730.

Dawes, Robyn M. 1988. Not me or thee but we: The importance of group identity in eliciting cooperation in dilemma situations: Experimental manipulations. Acta Psychologica, Vol. 68, No. 1-3: 83-97. (September 1988). Use VPN to see refs

Abstract. Cooperation in social dilemma situations is often explained in terms of egoistic incentives. These include: (i) explicit side payments in the form of rewards for cooperation and negative sanctions for defection, (ii) expectations of reciprocal altruism from others involved, and (iii) internalized positive utilities (e.g., an enhanced self-esteem) for ‘doing the thing’ or negative ones (e.g., a bad conscience) for defecting. Such egoistic explanations assumed that cooperation can occur only when the dilemma situation is, in effect, transformed into one not involving a dilemma.

Subjects in experiments summarized here made a single anonymous binary choice between cooperation and defection involving substantial amounts of money. High rates of cooperation were, nevertheless, obtained when the benefits of doing so accrued to members of a group that discussed the problem. Cooperation was not enhanced by discussion when its benefits accrued to members of another group, from which subjects had been separated on a random basis only a few minutes earlier; thus, we reject the internalized norm hypothesis. Finally, while discussion involved a great deal of promising to cooperate, such promising was unrelated to actual choice – both at the individual and group level – except when it was unanimous. Both the hypothesis that promising yields expectations of a satisfactory payoff for cooperation, and that promising binds subjects to cooperate due to the social rewards and punishments for keeping or reneging on promises in similar situations outside our laboratory, imply a positive correlation between promising and cooperation short of universal promising, rather than the obtained step-level function at that point. Our conclusion is that a consensus of promising to cooperate indicates group identity, which must either interact with cooperative commitments to make them effective, or may in itself be a sufficient condition to elicit cooperation. Such cooperation is far from synonymous with morality.

Kiesler, Sara, Sproull, L. & Waters, K. (1995). A prisoner's dilemma experiment on cooperation with people and human-like computers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(1), 47-65. {Recd: John Miller CMU}

Parise, S., Kiesler, S., Sproull, L., & Waters, K. (1999). Cooperating with life-like interface agents. Computers in Human Behavior 15: 123-142. {Recd: John Miller CMU}

As for Kets' student, she is on site, so ask her about the former summer school student who was doing games on networks. {Recd: John Miller CMU}

Freeman, L. C. Centrality in Social Networks: I. Conceptual Clarification Social Networks, 1, 1979, 215-239.

Freeman, L. C., D. Roeder, R. Mulholland. Centrality in Social Networks: II. Experimental Results Social Networks, 2, 1980, 119-142.

Mizruchi, Mark S., and Blyden B. Potts. Centrality and power revisited: actor success in group decision making 1998. Social Networks 20(4): 353-387.

Nass, Moon http://ferdig.coe.ufl.edu/courses/eme6602/nassmoon00.pdf

Simpson, Brent. 2006. Social Identity and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas. Rationality and Society 18, No. 4, 443-470 (2006)

[edit] Misc

Parise, S., Kiesler, S., Sproull, L., & Waters, K. (1999). Cooperating with life-like interface agents. Computers in Human Behavior, 15, 123-142.

Cummings, J., (2004). Work groups, structural diversity, and knowledge sharing in a global organization. Management Science, 50(3), 352-364. (download PDF)

Fussell, S. R., Kiesler, S., Setlock, L. D., Scupelli, P., & Weisband, S. (2004). Effects of Instant Messaging on the management of multiple projects. CHI 2004 (pp. 191-198). NY: ACM Press. (download PDF)

Finholt, T., Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S., (2002). Outsiders on the inside: Sharing know-how across space and time. In P. Hinds & S. Kiesler, Distributed work, Cambridge: MIT press. (download PDF)

Hinds, P., & Kiesler, S. (Eds.). (2002). Distributed work. MIT Press.

Kiesler, S., & Cummings, J. (2002). What do we know about proximity in work groups? A legacy of research on physical distance. In P. Hinds & S. Kiesler, Distributed work, Cambridge: MIT press. (download PDF)

Constant, D., Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1996). The kindness of strangers: On the usefulness of weak ties for technical advice. Organization Science, 7, 119-135. (download PDF)